Voltran unchained guns o.., p.1
Voltran Unchained: Guns of the Federation Book 3, page 1
VOLTRAN UNCHAINED
GUNS OF THE FEDERATION BOOK 3
ANTHONY JAMES
CONTENTS
Homecoming
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
End
Also by Anthony James
© 2022 Anthony James
All rights reserved
The right of Anthony James to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser
Illustration © Tom Edwards
TomEdwardsDesign.com
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HOMECOMING
The 2800-metre Ax’Kol war vessel Voltran hung in the cloudy skies above the Fremont military base on Loxor, motionless, yet somehow exuding a threat of greater magnitude than its admittedly impressive size and mass would normally have conveyed.
Nearby – within twenty kilometres - the Human Federation battleships Eldan Blade and Damocles were stationary at a similar altitude. These vessels were larger in both size and mass than the Voltran, while the Nexus-class heavy cruisers Stalwart and Pulveriser, which had positioned themselves directly between the alien vessel and the military base below, were slightly inferior by both measurements.
Captain Jed Grisham watched the scene through the sensors of his shuttle as it descended towards the landing field, currently fifteen kilometres below. The transport’s cockpit was cold and the light was dim, and a mustiness pervaded the air. His suit helmet was on the floor nearby, its power cell below thirty percent.
The local fleet was in a state of high alert and his actions were the cause of it. He had no regrets. Events had moved on within the HF during his time away and he wanted to play a part in the unfolding situation.
A momentary concentration on the portside feeds informed Grisham that the new generation Tibor class See No Evil was still tracking his shuttle. The warship was flying too close – within a thousand metres – as if its commanding officer was convinced the tiny vessel he was escorting to the surface might pull off a vanishing trick if he didn’t watch closely enough.
Grisham ignored the warship and interfaced with the underside sensor feeds. He studied the Fremont base for a few moments. Fremont was a sprawling mix of landing fields, construction yards, storage, research and manufacturing, and was one of the Human Federation’s primary installations. The shuttle’s advanced sensor arrays detected activity everywhere, and Grisham was sure the entire base had been mobilised.
He’d been promised safety, but given the current situation, it would only take one overzealous officer, one whispered command, or one itchy trigger finger, to screw things up. Grisham wanted to play a part in humanity’s future and he hoped he hadn’t misjudged by bringing the Voltran here to Loxor.
Pushing the distractions from his mind, Grisham piloted the shuttle towards his designated landing pad. A single large gravity car and four heavy tanks were lined up nearby, as if they were expecting a thousand Kijol soldiers to spill from the shuttle, instead of one man.
Grisham guided the shuttle lower. The vessel was controlled by mind link in the same way as the Voltran, but with far greater limitations on the quantity of information which could pass through the interface at any one time. That link was formed by holding onto a horizontal bar which protruded from the cockpit’s forward bulkhead. There were no seats. In fact, Grisham hadn’t seen a single one anywhere on the Voltran either.
“Any problems, sir?” asked Lieutenant Kaci Lopez on the comms.
Her words were carried to Grisham through the interface and appeared in his mind as though he’d heard them directly. The interpretation wasn’t perfect and Lopez’s voice came through with a faint rasping edge, but the result was close enough that Grisham couldn’t mistake her for anyone else.
“None so far,” said Grisham. “How does it feel to be playing with the big boys?”
“If this is what it means, I don’t much like it.”
“Nor me,” said Grisham. “Have you received further communication from the Eldan Blade?”
“Captain Avery isn’t the chatting type, sir. He’s maintained comms silence.”
“Maybe that’s for the best. I’ll be landing soon. Are you all clear on what to do?”
“Yes, sir. If you go missing, or we’re attacked, we get the hell away from here and lay low until the dust settles.”
“That’s right, Lieutenant. What’s happening is bigger than any of us, and keeping the Voltran in one piece and out of the wrong hands is more important to the Human Federation than anything else.”
“Let’s just hope the invitation you received was above board, sir.”
“If I have to trust anyone, it may as well be Admiral Danner,” said Grisham.
“Good luck, sir,” said Lopez.
“That goes for all of us.”
By now, the Ax’Kol shuttle was less than four thousand metres above the base and Grisham had an excellent view of the five immense construction trenches to the north, each of which was four thousand metres in length and more than two thousand across. Three of those construction trenches were occupied by partly built Nexus heavies. In the fourth, a battleship hull – so large that its nose and stern almost touched the ends of the trench – was taking shape, while the final trench was occupied by an almost completed resource carrier.
Twenty kilometres east of the existing shipyard, another four construction trenches were being hollowed out of the planet’s surface by the military’s single dedicated laser excavation vessel, supported by a swarm of other spaceships equipped with gravity scoops to remove the spoil. Grisham didn’t know how long it would be before the new facilities were ready. The words too little too late kept jumping into his mind. He hoped he was wrong.
The landing pad Grisham had been ordered to use was a raised concrete area, about eighty metres square, with sloped sides, and deep within the built-up southern area of Fremont. Several huge, flat-roofed warehouses flanked the landing pad east, while a comms tower rose to a height of four hundred metres to the west. Grisham wasn’t sure what function the other structures served. Right now, he had better things to think about.
Grisham set the shuttle down in the middle of the landing pad. A few seconds later, one of the vehicles he’d observed earlier appeared over top of the slope. It was a brick of a gravity car, clad in thick plates of armour, and of a sort used to transport officials, or, occasionally, dangerous criminals. The vehicle’s driver brought it so close to the shuttle that it was almost touching.
Releasing his grip on the interface, Grisham became suddenly blind to the world outside. He took one last look around the cockpit – which was hardly large enough to accommodate more than three or four Ax’Kol – grabbed his suit helmet and headed for the exit. A touch on the indented access panel opened the door and he strode into the bay beyond. Here, the near-black of the biological material which formed the shuttle was mixed with the lighter greys of metal objects, and the two were melded in a way which Grisham hadn’t even begun to understand.
A door in the middle of both flanks would lead straight outside, with no airlock. Grisham had learned that the Ax’Kol weren’t troubled by vacuum and were at home in almost any environment, however hostile.
Putting on his helmet, Grisham activated the portside door, which slid noiselessly to one side. Although the planet’s skies were cloudy, it was bright outside compared to the shuttle interior and he narrowed his eyes.
The heavy bass of a nearby Charos drive made the air throb and Grisham looked up from the doorway. Directly overhead, the See No Evil was hovering, its undersides not much more than two hundred metres above the shuttle. Grisham saw the hatches of its Ghost clusters, as well as its angular Gatler turrets.
It’s there in case one of those other warships fires a missile at this shuttle. Have we really fallen so far?
A squad of soldiers in full combat gear and carrying gauss rifles had already emerged from the gravity car. One of them strode forward and stopped in front of Grisham.
“I’m Sergeant Haver, sir,” the man said, yelling to make himself heard. “Captain Grisham, come with me please.”
The Ax’Kol shuttle didn’t have landing legs and its und erside was flat to the ground. Even so, the doorway was more than a metre above the landing pad and Grisham jumped down carefully.
“Where are we going, Sergeant?”
“I can’t give you those details, sir.”
Grisham didn’t push. He followed the soldier across to the gravity car. The vehicle’s side door was open and its interior was surprisingly plush, with facing bench seats wrapped in a material that might have been real leather. Climbing inside, Grisham sat. Haver joined him, along with four of the other soldiers. They carried themselves like veterans.
Haver pushed a button and the door closed, blocking out much of the sound from the Tibor’s Charos drive. The partition between the passenger seating and the cabin was opaque, denying Grisham a view of the driver. Instead, he looked through one of the side windows. His shuttle was partly visible to the left. The transport was sixty metres in length and that made it larger than many HF models. Its overall shape was rectangular, with rounded edges and a curved nose. It also packing more firepower than its appearance suggested.
Looking right, Grisham had a view of a slab-sided building, as well as a broad avenue that led east-to-west across the base. He saw a few vehicles, but not so many as he’d expected.
With a quiet hum from its gravity engine, the car in which Grisham was sitting pulled away, turning at the same time as it accelerated. The vehicle’s unseen driver aimed it down the sloped side of the landing pad. A large open space at the bottom of the slope was occupied by the armour which Grisham had seen on the way down.
Now, he had a ground level view of the four Storm heavy tanks. At fifty metres in length and twenty-five wide, the HF’s most potent ground assault vehicles required a lot of space to manoeuvre and the avenues of a city or military base weren’t the best place for them.
Grisham’s eyes lingered on the twin main gauss armaments of the nearest tank. The massive guns protruded from the angled face of a single turret and they could punch a hole through anything this side of a Kijol warship. Hull-mounted repeaters could chew through a five-metre-thick reinforced wall and reduce enemy soldiers hiding on the other side to a bloody pulp, while shoulder missiles could turn anything that was left into carbon.
To protect against air attacks, each tank was fitted with a Splinter anti-missile system, though this was widely considered a last hope defence. To a Kijol warship, the Storm tanks wouldn’t be anything more than a nuisance.
“That’s a lot of armour,” said Grisham.
“These are bad times, sir,” said Haver.
“So I’ve heard.”
Grisham was tempted to find out if the soldier would volunteer anything else if he was asked the right questions. In the end, Grisham held his tongue. Admiral Danner would be a more reliable source of information, though perhaps that wasn’t saying much.
The gravity car driver slowed the vehicle and two of the tanks accelerated ahead, before turning east onto the avenue. Then, the car increased speed and went directly after. When Grisham twisted in his seat, he saw the other two Storms following. The closest tank filled the rear screen and something about it made him feel uncomfortable.
Suddenly, the two trapezoidal housings for the Storm’s repeater guns rotated so they were aimed at the gravity car. Multiple barrels spun to incredible speed. At the same moment, the tank began ejecting scramblers from its topside tubes and the twin main armaments dropped lower in their turret. Those guns had only one target.
“Shit!” said Grisham. “That tank is about to—”
The repeaters fired and a torrent of high-calibre projectiles thundered into the rear of the gravity car, producing a clanking sound that filled the passenger area. Star patterns appeared all across the reinforced polymer screen. Grisham ducked low and the soldiers did likewise. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any place to hide and even a heavily armoured vehicle like this couldn’t withstand the onslaught from a Storm tank for longer than a few seconds.
Sergeant Haver kept his cool and talked rapidly into the comms. Meanwhile, the driver displayed admirable reactions. He threw the vehicle to one side at the same time as he reduced speed. It was a smart tactic, since the Storm’s main armaments had only a limited firing arc that meant they couldn’t hit anything too close.
The tank’s repeaters had no such limitation and their slugs pounded into the gravity car. Already, the rear screen looked close to destruction and even through the padding of his seat, Grisham could feel the drumming impacts against the metal.
A stark flash lit up the walls of the buildings to either side, and Grisham heard the crack-rumble of a Ghost detonation. He raised his head but could see nothing through the damaged rear screen. The driver suddenly threw the car right, and the soldiers were hurled towards the left-hand door. Sergeant Haver thudded into the side panelling and Grisham slid shoulder first into him.
Another flash came and this time it was right outside the car. The sound of the detonation was tremendous and Grisham was glad his helmet protected him from the worst of it. At the same moment, the car’s gravity engine failed. It simply cut out and the vehicle dropped twelve inches to the road. Grisham managed to place a foot on the edge of the opposite seat and braced himself. The car scraped along the ground for a short distance and then came to a halt.
“Sir, keep your head down!” said Havers. He spoke on the comms again and then pointed at a couple of the soldiers inside the car. “Daniels, Travis, out!”
One of the soldiers to Grisham’s right released the door and opened it partway. He looked outside briefly and then exited the vehicle at speed. The other soldier followed, slamming the door behind him. Havers kept talking on the comms.
“We’re getting out of here, sir,” he said. “We have to be quick.”
Havers exited the gravity car through the left-hand door. Without delay, Grisham followed. The rear quarter of the vehicle had been pummelled out of shape by the repeaters, but the armour had done its job.
Grisham looked further up the road. The Storm was about eighty metres away and blazing from one or more Ghost missile detonations. The tank’s hull was split open like an overripe fruit and it was definitely out of action. Directly above, the See No Evil had descended so low that its underside was almost touching the buildings flanking the avenue.
“Sir, move!” yelled Havers over the noise of the warship’s Charos drive. “This way!”
The soldier urged Grisham towards the Storm which had been ahead of the gravity car. The tank was backing up and one of its rear access hatches was open.
“Get inside, sir!” said Havers.
Grisham briefly wondered if this was an elaborate trap, to lure him away into captivity. He shook off the idea. The soldiers weren’t acting - this had been a genuine attempt on his life.
As he dashed for the tank, Grisham looked once over his shoulder to remind himself this was how a dirty war might look. Then, he clambered up the short ladder and crawled through the rear access hatch of the waiting Storm. A short passage with a one-metre ceiling led to a compact passenger bay. Inside, a single row of seats faced forward and another faced back. It was empty. Sergeant Havers came next and was followed by two of the other soldiers from the gravity car. Grisham didn’t know their names.
No sooner had the rear hatch closed to a remote command from the cockpit, than the tank lurched into motion.
“Take a seat, sir,” said Havers. “We’ll travel the rest of the way in this tank.”
Grisham wasn’t in the mood for sitting, but he did so anyway. “I knew it was bad, but I wasn’t expecting such a brazen attack,” he said.
“Truth be told, I wasn’t either,” said Havers, he sat in the opposite seat. “I’ve fought the Kijol for as long as I can remember, but I don’t like to imagine how this is going to turn out. Anyway, I hear you’ve been away for a time and this is what you’ve returned to.” He gave a thin smile. “Welcome home, sir.”
